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GLOBAL WARMING: LOCAL GOVERNMENT SUES ENERGY COMPANIES FOR NATURE'S DAMAGES

Once again, we see cash-strapped governmental entities attempting to sue the big bad fossil fuel energy companies to compensate them for the ravages of global warming and sea level rise. And, you can be damn sure that while “the people” are footing the bill for this nonsensical and frivolous litigation, “the people’ will never see a penny of any damages as the money will be funneled back into the general fund to support the criminally unfunded pension liabilities and support the engorged bureaucracy.

The legal actions …

CALIFORNIA COMMUNITIES CONFRONTING RISING SEA LEVELS FIGHT BACK

Marin and San Mateo Cos., City of Imperial Beach Go to Court to Hold Largest Fossil Fuel Polluters Accountable

Faced with mounting costs to respond to threats to their communities from rising sea levels, Marin and San Mateo Counties, along with the City of Imperial Beach, today filed complaints in California Superior Court to hold accountable 37 oil, gas, and coal companies for the ongoing harm they knew their fossil fuel products would cause by significantly increasing carbon dioxide pollution and contributing to global warming and sea level rise.

[OCS: Outstanding! I can’t wait for the battle of the dueling activists and scientists as they try to prove that: one, man’s climate signal can be isolated and measured against the background of nature’s normal and customary variability; and two, that atmospheric carbon dioxide is the proximate cause to global warming and sea level rise.]

The complaint states:

Defendants have known for nearly 50 years that greenhouse gas pollution from their fossil fuel products has a significant impact on the Earth’s climate and sea levels….

[OCS: Considering that the projections of the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide only exist in computer models that are incomplete and use flawed data as their inputs, I wonder how they are going to explain away the natural phenomena that has seen the Earth hotter, colder, with more and less atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the fact that much of the costal lands were hundreds of feet under water in the past?

It will be amusing to see the plaintiffs prove that any coastal sea level rise is caused by global warming and then having to explain shifts in the tectonic plates, silting, and erosion/deposition cycles. It will also be interesting to see how they plan to handle any allegation of negligence of corrupt politicians and city planners in knowing allow businesses and residences in the so-called danger zones.]

With that knowledge, Defendants took steps to protect their own assets from these threats through immense internal investment in research, infrastructure improvements, and plans to exploit new opportunities in a warming world.

[OCS: I wonder how the plaintiffs plan to explain the hiatus in warming for the past eighteen years and the fact that they failed to protect “the people” because they had access to the very same information via various government agencies that employed climate activists. Or that the global warming may turn into a far worse situation of global cooling as the global mean temperature regresses to the mean. Or, how global warming’s benefits have not been factored into the equation when computing potential damages to “the people.” Didn’t I read somewhere that corporations have a ‘legal fiduciary duty’ to do exactly the things they are being accused of doing?]

Instead of working to reduce the use and combustion of fossil fuel products, lower the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, minimize the damage associated with continued high use and combustion of such products, and ease the transition to a lower carbon economy, Defendants concealed the dangers, sought to undermine public support for greenhouse gas regulation, and engaged in massive campaigns to promote the ever-increasing use of their products at ever greater volumes.

[OCS: With all of the progressive socialist democrats and climate activists running around, one wonders how they concealed the alleged “dangers.” And, what about the disclosures of the Climate-gate e-mails which indicate government-funded climate activists were actively trying to stifle any opposition from the scientific community and knowingly allowing flawed research to be categorized as fact? Speak of massive campaigns to promote a public policy to advance a toxic political agenda, you cannot find worse misrepresentations and falsehoods outside of government-funded research.]

“The environmental harm these companies knowingly caused to our precious shorelines, and the entire world, and their deliberate efforts to conceal those frightening truths, jeopardizes the public’s health and places the financial burden of those consequences on the taxpayers,” said San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President Don Horsley. “With this legal action, the County of San Mateo and our partners in Marin County and Imperial Beach are standing up for our residents and businesses to hold these companies accountable for their emissions and lay blame where it truly belongs. The damage they’ve caused and continue to cause is unacceptable. But the fact that they’d prioritize their bottom line over the health and security of the public — including children — in the face of hard science is unconscionable.”

[OCS: I would posit that any damage to the shoreline was caused by natural forces and that any impact on property damage was a direct result of improper municipal zoning practices and building codes.]

The law firm representing the counties has graciously made the original filings of the lawsuit available on their site which can be found here.

[OCS: I couldn’t help but add the profit line to point out that there are significant profits to be made by a law firm that professes that they are “Protecting people and the Planet.” One needs to remember that the “people” are financing most of these lawsuits and that the defendants often raise the price of the goods and services “people” purchase to cover the cost of the legal defense and any settlement. And, that many settlements are simply a matter of convenience to avoid further costs. Hence, we almost always see the words “record fine” and the tagline “neither admitting nor denying the allegations.]

Our work arises out of our conviction that the courts provide the last even playing field to take on the biggest polluters. We want to change the behavior of the world’s largest corporations so that they no longer make everyone else pay for the damage caused by their pollution. Our team signed up for this work to make a difference for our clients and the world.

Vic Sher has spent his career developing and prosecuting unparalleled legal strategies to protect people and the planet. Over the past 30 years, he has achieved exceptional success—as a litigator, a consultant and as the leader of the world’s largest public interest environmental law firm—on behalf of communities and non-governmental organizations against the world’s most powerful polluters and largest law firms. Beyond representing public agencies and organizations in active lawsuits, Vic consults on effective litigation strategies with government agencies, national and local non-profit organizations, and attorneys around the country.

Matt Edling has dedicated his career to litigating socially just actions. He has prosecuted cases against the largest oil and insurance companies, financial institutions and multinational corporations, and won.

Matt typically represents public entities in large individual actions, as well as plaintiffs in complex class actions. He has been appointed lead or co-lead counsel in multiple class actions in state and federal courts, as well as primary counsel in multiparty actions throughout the country.

Our firm combines decades of top-level litigation and trial experience with an unwavering dedication to holding those responsible for pollution accountable.

Eliminating hairspray, refrigerants, Styrofoam, incandescent light bulbs, and fossil fuels will not have much effect on nature and the global climate. In all of the scientific papers produced, nobody has posited a solution that will withstand common sense scrutiny. What man-made effort can overcome the real drivers of global climate change: The Sun’s energy output in all spectral bands, extraterrestrial cosmic rays, the Earth’s position relative to the Sun, the Earth’s rotational and precessional dynamics, the Earth’s vulcanology and plate tectonics, the deep ocean currents, and the most potent of all of the self-regulating greenhouse gasses, water vapor. Most of the climate models do not adequately deal with the self-regulating feedback mechanism of clouds – which greatly outweighs all of the greenhouse gases combined.

The correct response to nature is adaptation. If one can see that there might be coastal flooding, don’t build there. Why the government chose to rebuild much of New Orleans that exists below sea level instead of making it into a massive deep water port – all doable with modern engineering – is but one example of man’s idiocy and politics.

I hope that the fossil fuel companies will stand up to the governmental bullies and their lawyers and make them prove, to a verifiable degree of certainty, that global warming will not turn into global cooling or that there will be significant climate changes outside of +/- 10-degrees Celsius within the next thousand years. One need only look at the projections made by some of the climate activists 40-years ago that have not come to pass to understand it is all about political power and money – “the people be damned.”

We are so screwed.

-- steve

"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius

Comments

GLOBAL WARMING: LOCAL GOVERNMENT SUES ENERGY COMPANIES FOR NATURE'S DAMAGES

Once again, we see cash-strapped governmental entities attempting to sue the big bad fossil fuel energy companies to compensate them for the ravages of global warming and sea level rise. And, you can be damn sure that while “the people” are footing the bill for this nonsensical and frivolous litigation, “the people’ will never see a penny of any damages as the money will be funneled back into the general fund to support the criminally unfunded pension liabilities and support the engorged bureaucracy.

The legal actions …

CALIFORNIA COMMUNITIES CONFRONTING RISING SEA LEVELS FIGHT BACK

Marin and San Mateo Cos., City of Imperial Beach Go to Court to Hold Largest Fossil Fuel Polluters Accountable

Faced with mounting costs to respond to threats to their communities from rising sea levels, Marin and San Mateo Counties, along with the City of Imperial Beach, today filed complaints in California Superior Court to hold accountable 37 oil, gas, and coal companies for the ongoing harm they knew their fossil fuel products would cause by significantly increasing carbon dioxide pollution and contributing to global warming and sea level rise.

[OCS: Outstanding! I can’t wait for the battle of the dueling activists and scientists as they try to prove that: one, man’s climate signal can be isolated and measured against the background of nature’s normal and customary variability; and two, that atmospheric carbon dioxide is the proximate cause to global warming and sea level rise.]

The complaint states:

Defendants have known for nearly 50 years that greenhouse gas pollution from their fossil fuel products has a significant impact on the Earth’s climate and sea levels….

[OCS: Considering that the projections of the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide only exist in computer models that are incomplete and use flawed data as their inputs, I wonder how they are going to explain away the natural phenomena that has seen the Earth hotter, colder, with more and less atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the fact that much of the costal lands were hundreds of feet under water in the past?

It will be amusing to see the plaintiffs prove that any coastal sea level rise is caused by global warming and then having to explain shifts in the tectonic plates, silting, and erosion/deposition cycles. It will also be interesting to see how they plan to handle any allegation of negligence of corrupt politicians and city planners in knowing allow businesses and residences in the so-called danger zones.]

With that knowledge, Defendants took steps to protect their own assets from these threats through immense internal investment in research, infrastructure improvements, and plans to exploit new opportunities in a warming world.

[OCS: I wonder how the plaintiffs plan to explain the hiatus in warming for the past eighteen years and the fact that they failed to protect “the people” because they had access to the very same information via various government agencies that employed climate activists. Or that the global warming may turn into a far worse situation of global cooling as the global mean temperature regresses to the mean. Or, how global warming’s benefits have not been factored into the equation when computing potential damages to “the people.” Didn’t I read somewhere that corporations have a ‘legal fiduciary duty’ to do exactly the things they are being accused of doing?]

Instead of working to reduce the use and combustion of fossil fuel products, lower the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, minimize the damage associated with continued high use and combustion of such products, and ease the transition to a lower carbon economy, Defendants concealed the dangers, sought to undermine public support for greenhouse gas regulation, and engaged in massive campaigns to promote the ever-increasing use of their products at ever greater volumes.

[OCS: With all of the progressive socialist democrats and climate activists running around, one wonders how they concealed the alleged “dangers.” And, what about the disclosures of the Climate-gate e-mails which indicate government-funded climate activists were actively trying to stifle any opposition from the scientific community and knowingly allowing flawed research to be categorized as fact? Speak of massive campaigns to promote a public policy to advance a toxic political agenda, you cannot find worse misrepresentations and falsehoods outside of government-funded research.]

“The environmental harm these companies knowingly caused to our precious shorelines, and the entire world, and their deliberate efforts to conceal those frightening truths, jeopardizes the public’s health and places the financial burden of those consequences on the taxpayers,” said San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President Don Horsley. “With this legal action, the County of San Mateo and our partners in Marin County and Imperial Beach are standing up for our residents and businesses to hold these companies accountable for their emissions and lay blame where it truly belongs. The damage they’ve caused and continue to cause is unacceptable. But the fact that they’d prioritize their bottom line over the health and security of the public — including children — in the face of hard science is unconscionable.”

[OCS: I would posit that any damage to the shoreline was caused by natural forces and that any impact on property damage was a direct result of improper municipal zoning practices and building codes.]

The law firm representing the counties has graciously made the original filings of the lawsuit available on their site which can be found here.

[OCS: I couldn’t help but add the profit line to point out that there are significant profits to be made by a law firm that professes that they are “Protecting people and the Planet.” One needs to remember that the “people” are financing most of these lawsuits and that the defendants often raise the price of the goods and services “people” purchase to cover the cost of the legal defense and any settlement. And, that many settlements are simply a matter of convenience to avoid further costs. Hence, we almost always see the words “record fine” and the tagline “neither admitting nor denying the allegations.]

Our work arises out of our conviction that the courts provide the last even playing field to take on the biggest polluters. We want to change the behavior of the world’s largest corporations so that they no longer make everyone else pay for the damage caused by their pollution. Our team signed up for this work to make a difference for our clients and the world.

Vic Sher has spent his career developing and prosecuting unparalleled legal strategies to protect people and the planet. Over the past 30 years, he has achieved exceptional success—as a litigator, a consultant and as the leader of the world’s largest public interest environmental law firm—on behalf of communities and non-governmental organizations against the world’s most powerful polluters and largest law firms. Beyond representing public agencies and organizations in active lawsuits, Vic consults on effective litigation strategies with government agencies, national and local non-profit organizations, and attorneys around the country.

Matt Edling has dedicated his career to litigating socially just actions. He has prosecuted cases against the largest oil and insurance companies, financial institutions and multinational corporations, and won.

Matt typically represents public entities in large individual actions, as well as plaintiffs in complex class actions. He has been appointed lead or co-lead counsel in multiple class actions in state and federal courts, as well as primary counsel in multiparty actions throughout the country.

Our firm combines decades of top-level litigation and trial experience with an unwavering dedication to holding those responsible for pollution accountable.

Eliminating hairspray, refrigerants, Styrofoam, incandescent light bulbs, and fossil fuels will not have much effect on nature and the global climate. In all of the scientific papers produced, nobody has posited a solution that will withstand common sense scrutiny. What man-made effort can overcome the real drivers of global climate change: The Sun’s energy output in all spectral bands, extraterrestrial cosmic rays, the Earth’s position relative to the Sun, the Earth’s rotational and precessional dynamics, the Earth’s vulcanology and plate tectonics, the deep ocean currents, and the most potent of all of the self-regulating greenhouse gasses, water vapor. Most of the climate models do not adequately deal with the self-regulating feedback mechanism of clouds – which greatly outweighs all of the greenhouse gases combined.

The correct response to nature is adaptation. If one can see that there might be coastal flooding, don’t build there. Why the government chose to rebuild much of New Orleans that exists below sea level instead of making it into a massive deep water port – all doable with modern engineering – is but one example of man’s idiocy and politics.

I hope that the fossil fuel companies will stand up to the governmental bullies and their lawyers and make them prove, to a verifiable degree of certainty, that global warming will not turn into global cooling or that there will be significant climate changes outside of +/- 10-degrees Celsius within the next thousand years. One need only look at the projections made by some of the climate activists 40-years ago that have not come to pass to understand it is all about political power and money – “the people be damned.”